


simpatico

by bibliophilo



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Venom (2018) Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22705375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliophilo/pseuds/bibliophilo
Summary: Given how terrible Yusaku is at taking care of himself, Ryoken supposes it was only a matter of time before he did something like contract a parasite.Not a parasite,a voice puts in helpfully.(Aiball Week 2020 Day 4: AU/Reborn)
Relationships: Ai | Ignis/Fujiki Yuusaku, Fujiki Yuusaku & Revolver | Kougami Ryouken
Comments: 1
Kudos: 45





	simpatico

**Author's Note:**

> the venom au we need but not the one we deserve

Something is seriously wrong with Yusaku.

Ryoken is far from the first to make this assessment, but as his best friend since childhood he’s certainly the most qualified to do so. Yusaku leaving him on read for a week? Perfectly normal. Lurking around dockside warehouses in suspicious hoodies? Unfashionable, but part of the fundamental Yusaku experience. Holing up in his shitty apartment for days on end doing his vigilante hacker thing? Ryoken would do the same if he didn’t have housemates to drag him out of his room (not to mention a much nicer house).

What isn’t normal is Yusaku stumbling into a moderately fine dining establishment and eating a live squid from the seafood tank.

“He just _bit_ it,” Takeru says again.

Ryoken gives a noncommittal “Mm.” Yusaku’s passed out in the backseat, his horrible hoodie splattered with black ink and blue blood. Ryoken would consider it an improvement if not for the smell.

“Right in the tentacle,” Takeru says, horror creeping over his face at the memory.

Ryoken ignores him in favour of concentrating on driving to the hospital as quickly as possible. Whatever’s going on with Yusaku, he’s in no position to object to a thorough examination. Especially not if Takeru turns his worried puppy eyes on him.

Takeru twists in the passenger seat to check on Yusaku, never mind that the rear-view mirror is right there. “It was like… he was _possessed_ ,” he hisses, like he can’t decide between being terrified or awestruck, which he is by everything else Yusaku does.

Ryoken has to agree. Yusaku tore into the live creature like he hadn’t eaten in weeks, his hunger a primal thing, desperate and ravenous and barely satiable. Rational thought hadn’t come into it at all.

Dr Taki is an old friend of Ryoken’s, and she promises to get in touch as soon as the results are in. Takeru insists on escorting Yusaku home, and as the only one of them who actually owns a car, Ryoken gets the esteemed privilege of chauffeuring them across the city.

“So,” he says at last, when he’s had enough of the anxious glances Takeru keeps sending over his shoulder. “What happened back there?”

Yusaku’s fully lucid again, if even more withdrawn than usual. He meets Ryoken’s gaze in the rear-view mirror; it might be his imagination, but for a split second Ryoken fancies he catches movement, a fleeting shadow passing behind Yusaku’s brilliant green eyes.

For the first time in years, Ryoken can’t quite tell what his friend is thinking.

“I might have a tapeworm,” says Yusaku blandly. His left arm spasms, jerking oddly before he locks his elbow at his side, digging his fingers into the leather upholstery.

So Yusaku doesn’t know either. He’s being oddly nonchalant about the whole affair, even for him, but Ryoken knows better than to prod him for answers.

Dr Taki’s call can’t come soon enough.

* * *

Ryoken gets that Yusaku can’t always tell him everything he’s up to, especially not when he’s in the middle of an independent investigation.

Still, he really, really wishes Yusaku had bothered to at least tell _someone_ before he went snooping around SOL Technologies’s new astrobiotech division, mere hours after receiving an admittedly detailed tip-off concerning unethical human experimentation.

Ryoken bets he hadn’t even bothered to get dinner before setting out, too. Yusaku is notoriously terrible at looking after himself; it was only a matter of time before he _did_ end up with a tapeworm. Or worse.

Dr Taki lays out her findings in simple terms: a good third of Yusaku’s organs are atrophied to a severe degree, with more beginning to show signs of the same. To Ryoken’s incredulity, Yusaku’s attention is divided between her and, somehow, the parasite that’s been eating him from the inside out.

“You said it would be counterproductive of you to harm your host,” Yusaku says calmly. Ah. That’s the voice he uses when he’s upset but doesn’t intend to show it.

“And you believed it?” Ryoken demands. Yusaku ignores him to presumably listen to whatever the parasite has to say for itself, which is a new low for their friendship, if Ryoken thinks about it.

“Yusaku,” Ryoken presses on. What is he _waiting_ for? “This _thing_ is obviously harming you, and it’s already proven that it can’t be trusted.” He isn’t quite sure where the parasite _is_ , so he settles for glaring at Yusaku’s fidgeting hands—a habit, he realises, that Yusaku has never had.

“I don’t know what you said to him, but you’ve told enough lies,” he says icily. “I won’t allow you to _kill_ him.”

Yusaku’s arms jerk in strange, abortive motions, but the eyes he glances at Ryoken with are his own. “There’s nothing between us,” he says in the same even, disdainful tone, and suddenly Ryoken is deeply grateful Yusaku isn’t addressing him.

“I never thought of you as a friend.”

Removing the parasite is rather anticlimactic. The MRI scanner’s sound frequency rips it away from Yusaku’s body as if it were a sticky jacket, and Dr Taki has the presence of mind to seal it in the scanning room before it can hurl itself back into its former host.

Pointedly ignoring the amorphous black wad squirming along the glass divider, Yusaku excuses himself to grab a bite from the hospital cafeteria, while Ryoken stays behind with Dr Taki to discuss his rehabilitation. She’s careful with her words, but Ryoken’s known her all his life, and neither of them are optimistic about Yusaku’s chances. Still they debate the matter back and forth, and it’s not until half an hour later that they realise Yusaku is missing.

And so is the parasite.

* * *

Ryoken expected a deep, guttural snarl, perhaps hurling half-comprehensible threats in a linguistic mashup. But the parasite’s voice is—he can’t think of any other descriptor in the moment—kind of _whiny_.

 _I’m_ not _a parasite, thank you very much! Don’t you know the difference between parasitism and mutualism? Ugh, and Yusaku said you were smart!_

Ryoken allowed the alien life form—an Ignis, he called himself, one of a proud, supposedly superior species—into his body in an act of desperation. He’s never regretted a decision faster in his life.

“What benefit could you possibly have given Yusaku? All you did was put him in danger!”

_Hey! I got him out of danger, danger he had no trouble getting into all by himself!_

Ryoken closes his eyes in a bid to stave off the impending migraine. The divide between his thoughts and the Ignis’s is nigh undetectable, the Ignis’s undercurrent of emotions blending seamlessly with his host’s, and if not for his voice one could disregard his presence entirely.

No wonder Yusaku went feral in that restaurant.

“He was only abducted because SOL thought you were still with him,” Ryoken hisses through gritted teeth. “You’re going to help me rescue him. But I won’t let you touch him again.”

 _That’s not enough and you know it!_ the Ignis snarls. _If you really want to save him, get me back to him!_

“As if I would forget what you did to him,” Ryoken snaps. “Assuming he even wants you back, what happens then? You’ll continue eating your way through him until there’s nothing left.”

 _You think the good doctor can save him? That anything_ you _do can reverse the damage?_ A wave of impatience ripples through their shared mind, sour and clinging.

_I’ll find a way to make it up to him. I have to. But if you don’t reunite us, he’s going to die anyway._

Ryoken really, really wishes he had other options. He isn’t naive enough to trust the Ignis, but he’s witnessed the physical augmentations he provided Yusaku firsthand, and with no better source for the layout of the SOL Tech building he’s going to need the assistance. Besides (and he admits he’s rather taking a chance here), if their emotions are jumbled together, he ought to be able to sense the Ignis’s true intentions. At the very least, he’s beginning to believe the Ignis really didn’t mean Yusaku any harm, that he’s serious about wanting to stay bonded to him.

“How do you plan to convince him to take you back?”

_My good looks and glowing personal charm, of course!_

… Right.

If the Ignis really is able to heal Yusaku, it would be best to reunite them as soon as possible. Ryoken only hopes SOL hasn’t done anything worse; he doesn’t feel great about the prospect of transferring a parasite— _not a parasite_ —to his best friend while he’s unconscious.

 _I hear mouth-to-mouth is very effective,_ the Ignis says, a little too casually. _That’s what happens in all the soap operas._

“You want me to kiss him?” Ryoken says incredulously.

**_No!_ **

There’s something in that one word, a bitter, seething current that boils to the surface of their mind, cresting and threatening to engulf Ryoken whole.

 _Just get me close to him,_ the Ignis says firmly. _I’ll take care of the rest._

“I see,” Ryoken says a little faintly, and he does, he does see, no matter how much he wishes he didn’t. “ _You_ want to kiss him instead.”

He doesn’t get a verbal response, but with their temporary connection he neither wants nor needs one.

All he’s saying is, this would _never_ have happened with a tapeworm.


End file.
